U.S. patent application Ser. Nos. 14/920,246, 15/149,323, and 15/149,429 describe various configurations of distance sensors. Such distance sensors may be useful in a variety of applications, including security, gaming, control of unmanned vehicles, and other applications.
The distance sensors described in these applications include projection systems (e.g., comprising lasers, diffractive optical elements, and/or other cooperating components) which project beams of light into a field of view. The beams of light spread out to create a pattern (of dots, dashes, or other artifacts). When the pattern is incident upon an object in the field of view, the distance from the sensor to the object can be calculated based on the appearance of the pattern (e.g., the positional relationships of the dots, dashes, or other artifacts) in one or more images of the field of view, which may be captured by the sensor's light receiving system (e.g., lens, image capturing device, and/or other components). The shape and dimensions of the object can also be determined.